The present invention relates to motion picture cameras in general, especially to motion picture cameras for use with 8mm film, and more particularly to improvements in cameras which are provided with means for making exposures with dissolve.
It is known to install in a motion picture camera a dissolve mechanism which enables the operator to expose a series of film frames with fade-out effect and to thereupon expose such series with fade-in effect in order to create the impression that a new scene merges into the preceding scene. It is also known to utilize in dissolve mechanisms a program wheel which has a circumferentially complete annulus of teeth adapted to be engaged and displaced by a pawl when the operator of the motion picture camera decides to make exposures with dissolve. The program wheel controls a sequence of operations including the exposure of a predetermined number of film frames with fade-out, rearward transport of such film frames, and stoppage of the camera motor when the frames are moved back to a position upstream or ahead of the film gate. The making of exposures with fade-in is normally started in response to renewed actuation of the camera release.
In presently known motion picture cameras which employ the just described dissolve mechanism, the making of exposures with fade-out (i.e., the first phase of operation with dissolve) must be preceded by stoppage of the camera motor. This means that the end of a scene cannot be photographed immediately following the preceding major part of such scene. Alternatively, it is necessary to install in the camera an extremely complex, bulky, sensitive and expensive auxiliary equipment which must be properly set prior to starting of the camera motor. The making of exposures with dissolve can begin by removing the finger from the trigger of the camera release (i.e., by relaxing the finger pressure sufficiently to enable the trigger to assume its idle or extended position) and by thereupon immediately depressing the trigger. Such cameras also exhibit the drawback that the making of exposures must be interrupted, if only for one or more seconds, prior to the first fade-out shot.